Ancestry British Ceylon – Vital Records Research

Over the last 12 months, researchers and visitors at the Cairns and District Family History Centre would have seen a sprightly, bespectacled, grey haired gentleman, peering intently into the microfilm reader screen.

He is busily transcribing films that have nothing to do with his own Anglo-Scandinavian Heritage.

My name is Larry Andresen, and I am researching British Ceylon birth, marriage and death records.

My British Ceylon research story

A Sea Captain, James Thomas Anderson, married a Dutch girl, Adriana Gertuida Toussaint. This was in Jaffna, the main northern port and administrative centre of British Ceylon. The marriage took place in 1803. This was 6 years after the British had taken over from the Dutch in 1796, and only 1 year after the 1802 Peace of Amiens was signed, which made Ceylon a British Crown Colony.

Captain James Thomas Anderson was described in one historical book as an English Sea Captain, and, of Scotland, in another.

In 1948 British Ceylon was granted Independence.

British Ceylon Family Immigration – the cause

In 1956 the Sinhalese dominated Government passed an edict that the Sinhalese language would be the only language taught in schools, and also the official language of government, banks, and business transactions. This marginalised the European community and mass migration took place.

The decision also marginalised the Tamil minority and they agitated for a separate Tamil State in the north and east of the country. The cause and effect of such a decision resulted in a 30 year Civil War.

Family Immigration – the effect

In 1965 Fred and Celia Anderson and their two children immigrated to Melbourne, Australia, for the sake of education and future employment of their children. In 1971, I married their only daughter, Coreen Anderson. In the following year, 1972, Ceylon became Sri Lanka.

Coreen and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary last year with our three children, their spouses, and our 2 beautiful granddaughters, aged 3 and 5. There are now 3 generations of this Anderson family living in Australia, and two earlier generations have died here. Both Coreen’s parents, and a maternal grandmother, are interred in Victoria.

Research in Sri Lanka

Upon my retirement, I undertook two research trips to try and find the origins of the Anderson family.

Searching for vital records in Colombo, the Capital of Sri Lanka, was a nightmare. Compulsory registration was introduced in 1897; over 100 years after the British took over from the Dutch. There were no central registers, and masses of vital documents accumulated in offices all over the Island. To get a BMD Certificate you had to know the names, date, and the district that the event occurred. You paid your money in Colombo, and then had to travel to the District office to pick up the paperwork. Once you had the certificate it would be impossible to read, as it is in Sinhalese.

Marriage record in Sinhalese

Searching cemeteries was also a nightmare. Since the 1600s, local villagers have been taking, breaking, and grinding their spices on the back-side of colonial granite headstones.

As Sri Lanka was in the middle of a prolonged Civil War, I was unable to travel north to Jaffna, the original Anderson Family town, as traveling to the region was prohibited. Churches, Government buildings, road and rail infrastructure had been destroyed right across the north and east of the country. The devastation of the 2004 Tsunami also destroyed coastal Churches and their records. The tidal waves reached up to 2 kilometres inland.

Church records

In the Colombo Anglican Cathedral Library I discovered five hundred neatly typed pages of Anglican Marriage and Baptism Indexes. These were compiled in 1972 by a retired Government Archivist, Mr Sam Mottau and had been gifted to the Church library. I was allowed to transcribe entries, including the second marriage of Captain James Thomas Anderson. This marriage took place in Kandy in 1831, whereas other reliable sources had quoted the port of Galle. Two Anderson family baptism entries were found, as well as the Colombo marriage of James Thomas Anderson jnr.

The Methodist Church has consolidated all of its pre 1982 registers in Colombo, but no indexes exist. Visits to Churches in other towns revealed registers from 1830 onward, just sitting in cupboards and drawers.

National Archives of Sri Lanka

National Archives of Sri Lanka

The magnificent Sri Lanka Archives was the only air-conditioned research facility I found in all of Sri Lanka. It has a full collection of British-era secondary genealogical and family history records, such as Government gazettes, newspapers and almanacs.

Records found elsewhere

The Hague. Holland

The Dutch Archives and the Dutch Genealogical Society are in the same building in The Hague, Holland. British era records were found in both locations.

United Kingdom:

England

No British Ceylon BMD records were found in England, not even Bishops Transcripts. The National Archives have a wealth of secondary BMD records in official documents, military records, newspapers, Almanacs and Directories.

The British library has the factory records for British Ceylon under the Madras Presidency, 1795 to 1802, but no BMD records.

Scotland

No Anderson baptism entry for a 1778/9 birth matched our man, James Thomas Anderson, in any Scottish research centre. The trip to Scotland discovered a link in my own Andresen-Perrott family history,

I now have a copy of the original church marriage entry for Richard Perrott and Margaret Jemima Fordyce at Inveresk with Musselburgh in 1782. These two are my maternal grandparents, 4 times removed

USA

The LDS library in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, provided a window into the huge number of British Ceylon films that the Church of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) have stored in the Granite Mountain Vaults. A week studying the records showed the majority were in the Sinhalese or Tamil language. An Aussie education does not prepare you to decipher these records. A number of British Ceylon films in English were viewed and copied to USB stick for future reference.

The Present

Widows and Orphans Fund for British Ceylon Civil Servants

The films I am now reading are applications to join the “Widows and Orphans Fund for British Ceylon Civil Servants”. The LDS Church photographed these in the 1980s at the Registrar-Generals’ Office in Colombo. The application entries date from the 1860s to the 1920s. These applications have marriage, birth and sometimes death dates for whole Ceylon Civil Servant Family units, all written in the husbands’ own handwriting. There are also further family history clues, as each entry contains his position, location and salary. As a majority of the Anderson Family were Civil Servants, including Doctors, Lawyers, and Police Inspectors, I hope to fill in some of the blank branches.

The films contain all ethnic groups including Sinhalese, Tamil, Moors, and even the Malay soldier families, under the Dutch in the 1700s. Most of the Malays became policemen on the demobbing of the Ceylon Regiment.

The Future

There are 35 films in the series, with approximately 1000 complete families on each. Thankfully they are all in English, although some of the Sinhalese names are 60 characters long! I will be still sitting at the film reader screen, engrossed in Ceylon Civil Servants, for years into the future. This is because the CDFHS research facility, with an eclectic collection of dedicated, happy, caring, and sharing members is the ONLY place to be to view these unique LDS British Ceylon films.

14 Comments

Please help me find my roots .my great grand father Thomas george Harrison hailed from Britain lived in Sri Lanka had 2 sons George william my grand father married margerett lodawyke my father Roy george my great grand served in the European police and later did business mygrand father was a civil engineer joined the military royal artillery in 1915 world war 1 september in India was born in ceylon Dambulla district in march 1876 will it be possible to get birth or baptism certifices ofboth of them

Hi there Mr Andresen…I am searcing records for a John Crozier said to have settled in Ceylon. He narried Lavinia Bastiansz in 1846 at the DRC Wolvendhal. The Dutch Burgher Union records are a bit inaccurate. Also looking for any death notices/certificates for John and Lavinia and their 4 children…Jane Adelaide, George Martin, John Cirnelius and Charlotte Wilhelmina

Larry has taken a look at the Ceylon records for you. He has located a public servant record for a George M Crozier containing details of George’s wife and their children. These records are not indexed, so an extended search would be time consuming. To find this record and to trawl through the microfilms go to:
FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/
Search
Catalog
Sri Lanka
Pensions
the record is on the second film
Record page number is 549

I am trying my husband’s family from Sri Lanka, his father a Hindu, Thomas Daniels was born on or about April 20,1902 in either Colombo or Kandy to Abraham and Elizabeth Daniels, any information of any relatives still in Sri Lanka will be greatly appreciated and helpful as I am doing a Ancestry Tree. I knoe Thomas Daniels left Sri Lanka as a tenager for the UK to study and eventually immigrated to the US,but I can’t find any records of his travels.
Thank You

Hi Larry, We are looking for information for our Ancestor William Williamson, Colombo, Ceylon, who married Jane Barnes, ? Colombo, Ceylon. We know his son (James Barnes Williamson married Alice Joseline Sisouw in 1878 at Christ Church, Colombo). We also can not find any information through Ancestry.com for Bertram Leslie Williamson (who married Constance Evelyn Boucher), who was his grandson. Any help would be much appreciated. Thank You.

Hit here ,
Please could you help me to find my root. My great grand father Rose White who lived in Srilanka UVA province such as Gurutalawa ,Welimada …(.. Village names ) should be 1935. He was married and had two children ( girl and boy) left Srilanka when they were 4years old ( not sure which year he left ). I have great-grand father black and white photo. Any help would appreciated.
Many thanks
Rehana

Hey Larry
My name is Lea, and I’m from Denmark. I was adopted from Sri Lanka in 1991. I hope you can help me. I really want to find my biological father. I actually don’t have a lot to go on with him, so I hope you can help me anyways. I’ve been told that my biological father is British. Him and his family lived in Sri Lanka, I think it was closed to Nuwara Eliya but I’m not sure, is there my biological mother is from. She was a “young girl” in the House I think is like a maid but she get pregnant with me and I really want to know if is true. I couldn’t find my biological mother so I want to find him instead. So I want to hear if you have anything of they British families who lived on Sri Lanka in 1990-1991 maybe longer. I’ve also been told he was young as my biological mother but that I don’t know either if is true. She was in that time 20 years old. I hope you can help me.

Hello Mr. Andresen,
My name is Derek Godfrey. I currently live in New Delhi, India. I wonder if you may be able to assist me. I am trying to locate details for my paternal grandmother, Daphne Mildred Deneys, who married my grandfather, Eugene Joseph Godfrey, at Tuticorin, near Madras in South India on 12th April, 1909. Her place of residence, as mentioned on the marriage record, was given as “Dimbula, Ceylon”. Her age was given as 23 years. Family sources have said that she was born in Ireland and was orphaned, sometime between the ages of 4 and 10. Around age 10, she is supposed to have sailed to Ceylon to join an elder brother who was said to be a practicing doctor there. If I work backwards in time, she should have been in Ceylon or Dimbula approximately between the years 1896 to around 1909. She was married in South India in 1909.
With kind regards … Derek

Hi Derek – here is Larry’s reply.
There is no mention of a Dr Deneys in Ceylon at all for that time period. There is mention of a Nurse, Miss R J Deneys at the Kandy hospital in the 1909 Ferguson’s Directory. In the 1914 Ferguson’s Directory she has moved to the hospital at Slave Island, in Colombo. These directories are online at Dilmahs’ History of Ceylon Tea site and run from 1871/2 to 1997. The Kabristan Archives Sri Lanka website notes a marriage of a Laura Harriet Deneys at Holy Trinity Church, at San Sebastion Hill in Colombo to a Singalese, you have to pay to get the details. Dimbula is a small tea Estate town and a search of tea estate owners and managers does not throw any light on who Daphne Mildred Deneys was living with. There is a small tree on FamilySearch for her but the birthdate, ( born 13 Oct 1894, Ireland) on it would make her 15/16 at marriage, the death shown on this is 22 Feb 1978, in Lambeth England.
Larry

Hi, Am looking for information about my great grand father Peter John Perera married to Clara Elizabeth Oldenbottle on the 1st of march 1916 and lived in Kotahena. he died in 1964. We need details of Peter John Perera’s date of birth and his parents details (possibly Simon Alexander Perera & Cecilia Jansz). We have been told that he originated from a Baumgartner family line. We have tried many sources for the information but failed. Would you have some information you can help me with or provide me a link to find the information.
Many thanks
Rochelle

Hi Rochelle,
A web search suggests that he is a Roman Catholic. FamilySearch have filmed the Registrar-General’s Marriage Certificates for this date and place, 1916 Kotahena, which is a suburb or Colombo.
Unfortunately not online yet. They can be viewed at Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, only at this time. I would suggest contacting St Lucia’s Cathedral, or St Anthony’s Shrine, which are the two places of Catholic worship in Kotahena.

These are the relevant FamilySearch film numbers: 1466074 and 1466075

The Marriage Certificate will give full name, age, civil condition, nationality and rank or profession, father’s name and his rank or profession.
As for the Baumgartner query; it looks like another adoption search, which is impossible without dates and places.

Thanks Larry and Heather. You have the death date and place correct. I have her death certificate in my possession. She was married to my grandfather at Tuticorin at South India on 12-April-1909. Her age declaration on the marriage record is given as 23 years, which would put her year of birth as 1886. It is likely that the tree on familysearch was set up by my daughter, who has also put much effort into this search. Thanks for taking the time to dig around, Larry. I shall follow up on the information provided by you. I wonder if there would be any school records available for the school/s in Dimbula?